1925, Soviet movie master Sergei Eisenstein directed the classic movie Battleship potemkin. In the film, "Odessa Steps Massacre" became one of the most classic clips in the film history, and "Odessa Steps" became the most famous ladder in the world because of this film. In this clip, Eisenstein successfully used the juggling montage technique, highlighting the bloody atrocities of the czar's military and police in killing peaceful residents, including the old, the weak, women and children.
(panoramic) step mouth. Running crowd. Police in the square, Cossack cavalry.
Mid shot: The army passed by the dead mother with her child.
(Panorama) The turn of the stairs. Running crowd.
Mid shot: People are running on the steps.
Mid shot: Fence. An old man is beside the body. People rolled off the fence.
Mid shot: The crowd near the pillar. The man who was killed. One of them is an old woman.
(Close-up) A volley of broken guns.
Mid shot: The crowd near the pillar. A person who stumbles over a post.
Mid shot: The ranks of the army. (feet)
Mid shot: A woman pushes a stroller. People walked by the car.
In just six minutes of the massacre, Eisenstein used 150 shots (each shot was less than three seconds on average) to switch between the butcher and the slaughtered person repeatedly. In the process, Eisenstein also designed a scene in which a stroller slowly slides down the stairs, adding a kind of anxiety, tension and fear to the audience, which was later imitated by countless directors.
In fact, "Odessa Steps" is not long, but Eisenstein has repeatedly combined shots from different directions, different viewpoints and different scenes to expand the space of the stairs, and the Odessa Steps are tall and long. The deformation of this space rendered the cruelty of the czar's army and left an indelible impression on the audience.